


listening to the wind

by jamo



Category: Anne with an E (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, I AM A MESS, One Shot, Post S2, anne helping him feel less alone?? idk, but hopeful?, gilbert being emo, gilbert mourning his father's death, in which gilbert feels awkward, kinda sad, sorta canon compliant i guess, this is a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 00:16:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17090459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamo/pseuds/jamo
Summary: It is winter in Avonlea and Gilbert is talking to his father's grave. Again. It helps him cope, he thinks. Anne finds him there during a winter stroll.(someone teach me how to write summaries)





	listening to the wind

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoy this mess of a fanfic! if you would like, please leave critiques and feedback in the comments :)

‘Bash is, uh, getting the hang of farming. He reckons if he makes it through Avonlea’s winter he’ll be right. You would like Bash and Mary. They’re-, they’re really good people. I wish you could’ve met them. You and Bash would get along… probably bond over making fun of me. And you would love Mary’s curry. And no-nonsense attitude.’

In winter, Avonlea wears white. The land is silent, the trees are sleeping spirits and sometimes, when he’s sitting on the graveyard bench, a solitary figure in the snow, Gilbert feels as if it is only him and the wind who dare to speak. In a strange and almost pathetic way they are similar - talking to people who won’t ever listen. At least, not anymore.

He knows its not pathetic, and if he ever suggested that it sometimes feels that way to Bash or Mary - heck, if he even told them about what he comes here to do (which he hasn’t - it feels too private; when he’s here its just him and his memories) - he knows they would tell him he was wrong, that it wasn't pathetic in the slightest; ‘how can it be pathetic if its helping you?’, ‘Blythe, its a coping mechanism’, those kind of things. And they would be right. But he can’t help but think it, sometimes, when he's sitting all alone in the snow, talking to his deceased father’s gravestone, as if it came anywhere near to being with the real living father he once knew. But it helps him, and its been a year, and though it still aches he no longer feels as if he is living as a boy overshadowed by grief, forced to grow up too soon, looking at the world through a kaleidoscope of greys.

Plus, John Blythe always did like to know what was happening around town.

‘Bash and Mary are definitely what you would have called soulmates,’ he says, a wry smile on his face. ‘They banter a lot, but you can tell they love each other. Bash adores Mary - calls her ‘my angel’. And even though she rolls her eyes, you can tell she cares for him just as much. They’re beginning to shape my own idea of how marriage should look - I know you would tell me I’m too young to be worrying about marriage of all things, but I’m not worrying, per se. I’ve just been thinking about what makes a marriage so fulfilling - so right. I feel like there are so many marriages in Avonlea which are ‘proper’ and ‘right’ in the sense that it fulfils what people expect it to fulfil. Duty, children, a respectable family by all accounts. And yes, those people, they still love each other. But something about the way Bash and Mary interact - the way they love each other so deeply, and respect each other, and are able to laugh and cry together, how they’re able to be equals but be themselves nonetheless, and embrace each other as who they truly are; there’s something about that which I can’t help wishing will be in my own marriage. If I ever have one.’ Gilbert is silent for a second before he rushes on. Even though he knows there’s not really anyone here to listen to his rambles, he still feels awkward, being a mere boy of almost-sixteen-and-three-quarters babbling on about his thoughts on marriage of all things, in the middle of winter. Essentially to himself. How John Blythe would have fondly chuckled, telling him maturity was a wonderful thing but he didn't have to grow up quite so quickly.

‘Ms Stacey has done wonders to the state of the schoolhouse - she is such an improvement from Mr Phillips. You always did dislike him, didn't you? You’ll be glad to hear that Prissy Andrews ran out of their wedding. She’ll be continuing her education. Ms Stacey is very progressive - she rides a bicycle to school, and wears pants - you can only imagine how the Mothers Group responded to that at first. They were going to get rid of her, before, uh, some students proved her brilliance as a teacher. Would you believe they hopped a freight?’

He is recounting the story of this freight hopping and the reasons for when the crunch of boots on crisp snow interrupt him.

The words on his lips fade into mumblings and then silence. He doesn’t like talking so much when people other than his dad are there to hear it. He doesn’t think they’d want to, anyways.

‘Oh! Gilbert,’ Anne breathes, her words crystallising in the freezing air. ‘I am so sorry to interrupt. I’ll just lea-‘ she begins to turn away.

‘Oh, no, um, don’t let me stop you from, uh, doing what you’re doing. There’s enough space here for the two of us,’ he gestures towards the graveyard bench.

There is comfortable silence before she says, ‘I think graveyards have this beautiful tragedy to them. There are so many memories sleeping here under the snow, of what people were - and what they could have been, lying here, til the end of time, hidden under grass and gravestones.’ Gilbert gazes at his father’s burial spot and smiles sadly. ‘Yeah.’

‘You were talking to him, weren’t you? Sorry for interrupting you - please, don’t mind me, keep going if you would like.’

‘It’s fine, I was kind of running out of gossip anyways,’ he replies lightly.

‘Well,’ Anne says, and it takes Gilbert a moment to realise she isn’t addressing him anymore, ‘You should know, Mr Blythe, that your son is doing exceptionally well in school.’ She adds in a whisper, ‘Not that would ever tell him that,’ her eyes twinkling. ‘Has he told you he is going to be a doctor? Even though we are academic rivals, I can see clear as day he will be an exceptional one.’

Gilbert’s cheeks feel unusually warm at this, (probably his body giving his a rush of extra heat so that he doesn’t die of hypothermia? that can happen, right?) but Anne continues to chatter, now talking about Marilla trying to teach her how to make an apple pie. Eventually, after she has talked about Mrs Lynde’s baking, various school shenanigans, gushed about Ms Stacey and mentioned a story-writing club she apparently runs to of things to discuss. Gilbert speaks ’Would you-‘ he begins. ‘Do you want to read a poem? For him? I usually do, but I think you would do it much better.’ He holds out his father’s battered poetry book to her and she takes it with stiff fingers, but cradles it carefully as she opens it, handling it like a fragile bird. She gently fingers through the yellow pages before choosing one. ‘Song of the Open Road, by Walt Whitman,’ she says. ‘“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road.”’ Her voice is clear as the church bells on a crisp winter morn, and she has cast away her usually dramatic tone and exchanged it for something more gentle and serene. The words flow together, falling into a lyrical cadence and rhythm, shaped by her voice. Gilbert remembers reading the poem many times to his father as he lay in his bed. He remembers clean white sheets, his father’s pale face, the still of a room waiting for the man in it to pass away. He remembers his voice breaking in the last verse, and his mouth being dry from reading out loud for hours. Anne’s reading makes it sound like adventure and contentedness, and hope. Things his tired voice could not have given the words when he had last read it. The poem comes to a close. ‘You have excellent taste in poetry, Mr Blythe,’ Anne says smiling as she closes the book.

The two of them are silent, but the quiet which fills the space between them is a companionable, contented one.

Anne’s lips part and her voice breaks the stillness of the air, ‘I love winter, don't you?’ she says. ‘Of course, when spring and summer and autumn arrive they will be my favourite, in turn, but winter is just so magical. Everything seems clean and pristine, if only for the while, and everyone is quieter, like they’re sleeping with the snow. You know what I love the most, at the moment?’ she says, ‘I love listening to the wind - it seems to have so many secrets it wants to whisper in your ear.’

Gilbert doesn't say anything, for there is nothing that needs to be said, but he begins to think that maybe there are people who will listen to the wind, and understand it too, if you’re lucky enough to find them.

They both have a sense that maybe they are on the edge of something completely different, something more than friendly rivals. Perhaps in a few years they will have discovered what is around the bend in the road - but for now they are happy to just be, two figures sitting in the snow outside the graveyard, their two heads, red and black, stark against the white backdrop.

Listening to the wind.


End file.
